Friday, May 09, 2008

Where Am I, and How Did I Get Here? - Part 2

The first thing we were ever asked to do on the course was to write a blog. This blog was entitled Where Am I, and How Did I Get Here?. This blog outlined where we were in our skills and most importantly where we wanted to be in 2 years time. That 2 years is now almost up and now is the time to look back at this initial blog and reflect on where we are now and how we got here from that moment 2 years ago. In this initial blog I wrote

"My main reason for joining the course is to have fun and enjoy it, but I am also hoping to use it as a stepping stone, either to a job, or a full degree at university."
Throughout the course I have had nothing but fun and it has being very enjoyable but more important about this statement was I was hoping to use the course as a stepping stone and the course has allowed me to do this.

In the past few weeks I have managed to gain a job working as an ICT technician for a local school. Although this job is not strictly design based I feel that without the course I would not have being able to get it.

This is because the job requires a very mixed and broad knowledge of IT skills. These skills include web design and programming skills (such as PHP and Javascript) but also the transferable skills which we have learnt throughout the course such as time management and team skills.

These skills I feel are as important, if not more so than the core skills I learnt on the course. This is because the transferable skills I have learnt can be applied to almost any job situation in one way or another, where as obviously the core skills I learnt are specific to certain jobs.

I also wrote in my initial blog
"Presently, all the skills I have learnt about web design, graphic design, etc. have been self taught skills. Something of which I am sure a lot of employers could do without. For this reason, I hope that from the course, I will gain the necessary experience and qualifications to further my career and advance to the next step."
As I have already said, I have learnt skills on this course which have aided me to getting a job which is a testament to the course.

One of the biggest choices I have had to make on the course however was whether to attend a third year at university or not. My reasoning for not doing this option and getting a job is because I feel the course has taught me as much (and more) as I would learn in a third year at university.

Speaking to friends who are at/have being to university in the past it sounds like they are throwing a lot of money away to learn absolutely nothing and so I decided that I would rather put the skills I have learnt so far to work. As they say, you don't really begin to learn properly until you're out there doing it.

Finally one of the last things I said in my initial blog was
"Now, I’m no stranger to hard work, but I know that to get to where I want to be in 2 years will take a lot of hard work, probably a lot more than I’ve experienced before. But at the end of it, when I’ve gotten the right qualifications to get the job I want, I’ll be able to look back, and know it was all worth it."
There is no doubt in my mind that the past 2 years have being the most testing of my educational life so far but as I said in my initial blog I was expecting it. I can definitely say that the past 2 years was worth it too and would recommend the course to anyone who was even considering getting into the industry.

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